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[GH-ISSUE #2445] Autoconfigure for running on Mac platform #1123

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opened 2026-03-01 21:49:05 +03:00 by kerem · 1 comment

kerem commented

2026-03-01 21:49:05 +03:00

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Originally created by @boxley-anaconda on GitHub (Sep 10, 2024).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/nektos/act/issues/2445

Act version

0.2.66

Feature description

I'd like easier "out of the box" experience for using act on Macs.
It took quite a bit of research & experimentation to arrive at:

gh act --container-architecture linux/amd64 -P self-hosted-main=catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest

Ideally act would see that it is running on Mac, and autoset these, perhaps with a friendly warning message, and maybe some config setting to make this permanent without a warning.

Similarly, the documentation might call this out more explicitly. I pieced it together from gh act and gh act --container-architecture linux/amd64 output, and research on the errors (the Internet has a lot of outdated/wrong examples to fall into).
And this error message was very hard to interpret:

Skipping unsupported platform -- Try running with `-P self-hosted-main=...

That's the literal message: it cuts off with "...".

In contrast, running on Ubuntu under WSL2 the user experience was ideal: it just worked.
I got real excited by gh act from that, and started trying it with paid work on a MacBook to share the "dynamic duo" of gh and act with my teammates.

Originally created by @boxley-anaconda on GitHub (Sep 10, 2024). Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/nektos/act/issues/2445 ### Act version 0.2.66 ### Feature description I'd like easier "out of the box" experience for using `act` on Macs. It took quite a bit of research & experimentation to arrive at: ``` gh act --container-architecture linux/amd64 -P self-hosted-main=catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest ``` Ideally act would see that it is running on Mac, and autoset these, perhaps with a friendly warning message, and maybe some config setting to make this permanent without a warning. Similarly, the documentation might call this out more explicitly. I pieced it together from `gh act` and `gh act --container-architecture linux/amd64` output, and research on the errors (the Internet has a lot of outdated/wrong examples to fall into). And this error message was **very** hard to interpret: > Skipping unsupported platform -- Try running with `-P self-hosted-main=... That's the literal message: it cuts off with "...". In contrast, running on Ubuntu under WSL2 the user experience was ideal: _it just worked_. I got real excited by `gh act` from that, and started trying it with paid work on a MacBook to share the "dynamic duo" of `gh` and `act` with my teammates.

kerem added the

kind/feature-request

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2026-03-01 21:49:05 +03:00

kerem commented

2026-03-01 21:49:06 +03:00

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@ChristopherHX commented on GitHub (Sep 28, 2024):

Me as a maintainer of act and windows / linux user without a vision of nektos/act as a standalone cli tool, hope for more actionable items here to get part of my roadmap, see recently added backlog labels.

My backlog progress will stall if my PR's get stale during review and my concurrency limit for nektos/act has been hit

E.g. Suggestion to change an error message to some suggested message are much better.

Adding a link to a full docu site page on nektosact.com is possible as well

And this error message was very hard to interpret:

Skipping unsupported platform -- Try running with `-P self-hosted-main=...

That's the literal message: it cuts off with "...".

Technically ... this is the end of the message in the source code. Now you have the choice, to use a docker image, run directly on your mac/linux/windows etc.

There would be this docu: https://nektosact.com/usage/runners.html, code here: https://github.com/nektos/act-docs

So what can we do to make this easier to interpret? I assume you found the expected resolution.

--container-architecture linux/amd64

The long story, we received a lot of bug reports of people expecting a intel env on an arm device.
Those this is logged as a warning.

act can run just fine with the default natively on arm64, it's faster, more energy efficient. However different to the usually used ubuntu-latest VM.

Now what can be done that you can easier get act up and running for your usecase without pain?

Figure out how act has been called and prepend e.g. gh act / act conditionally to the suggested cli switch?
Suggest to create a .actrc file with the cli switches? This can make the cli to shrink to just gh act / act
More links to nektosact.com in messages?

The -P self-hosted-main= portion is not possible to be auto configured, we don't know if you expect it to be linux/mac/(windows, a mac host can't do this without vm)

Or do you expect a wizard like experience, that act ask you what you want when it doesn't know the label?

@ChristopherHX commented on GitHub (Sep 28, 2024): Me as a maintainer of act and windows / linux user without a vision of nektos/act as a standalone cli tool, hope for more actionable items here to get part of my roadmap, see recently added backlog labels. _My backlog progress will stall if my PR's get stale during review and my concurrency limit for nektos/act has been hit_ E.g. Suggestion to change an error message to some suggested message are much better. Adding a link to a full docu site page on nektosact.com is possible as well > And this error message was **very** hard to interpret: > > > Skipping unsupported platform -- Try running with `-P self-hosted-main=... > > That's the literal message: it cuts off with "...". Technically `...` this is the end of the message in the source code. Now you have the choice, to use a docker image, run directly on your mac/linux/windows etc. There would be this docu: <https://nektosact.com/usage/runners.html>, code here: <https://github.com/nektos/act-docs> So what can we do to make this easier to interpret? I assume you found the expected resolution. > --container-architecture linux/amd64 The long story, we received a lot of bug reports of people expecting a intel env on an arm device. Those this is logged as a warning. act can run just fine with the default natively on arm64, it's faster, more energy efficient. However different to the usually used ubuntu-latest VM. Now what can be done that you can easier get act up and running for your usecase without pain? - Figure out how act has been called and prepend e.g. `gh act` / `act` conditionally to the suggested cli switch? - Suggest to create a `.actrc` file with the cli switches? This can make the cli to shrink to just `gh act` / `act` - More links to nektosact.com in messages? The `-P self-hosted-main=` portion is not possible to be auto configured, we don't know if you expect it to be linux/mac/(windows, a mac host can't do this without vm) Or do you expect a wizard like experience, that act ask you what you want when it doesn't know the label?

kerem referenced this issue

2026-03-01 21:52:41 +03:00

[PR #1123] [MERGED] docs(README): remove go install #1791

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